Old Iranian Online

Lesson 10: Old Persian

Scott L. Harvey, Winfred P. Lehmann, and Jonathan Slocum

Herodotus (7.1) relays a dispute between Darius' sons Artobazanes and Xerxes for succesion to their
father's throne. Each made an appeal according to Persian tradition, which held that the eldest son
would become the next king. As Darius' first son by his first wife, Artobazanes presented a straightforward
case favoring himself, while Xerxes was forced, like a more 'modern' politician, to stretch the
meaning of the term 'first-born'. As Darius' first son by Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great, whom
Darius had married after becoming king, Xerxes claimed that it was he who was the true heir apparent
since it was he who was the eldest son of Darius the King while his brother was merely the eldest son
of Darius the man. According to Herodotus, Darius found the latter argument more compelling and
appointed Xerxes his successor. By Xerxes' own accounts, however, it was Ahura Mazda's desire for
Darius to make Xerxes the next king, since he was the greatest of all his sons. It is for this reason
alone, Xerxes implies, that he ascended the throne upon his father's death (486 B.C.).

Reading and Textual Analysis

Xerxes' so-called "Daiva Inscription" is carved on four stone tablets that were found in a building
located on the southeast corner of the Royal Complex at Persepolis, Darius' and Xerxes' capitol. Of
the four, two are in Old Persian, a complete version of 60 lines and a copy stopping in the middle
of line 51. Elamite and Akkadian translations of 50 lines each complete the set. The inscription's
opening lines are nearly identical to lines 1-6 and 13-15 of Darius' proclamation at Naqs-i-rastam
(cf. Lesson 9), but for the necessary changes of name. Lines 13 to 28 then list the countries over which
Xerxes held sway "by the will of Ahura Mazda." The selection below begins in the middle of line 28,
where Xerxes declares that one of the countries just named rose against him but was defeated when
Ahura Mazda bore him aid in putting the rebellion down. In line 35, Xerxes goes on to describe another
kind of revolt -- the worship of daivas, or the practice of the old religion overturned by Zarathustra
-- that he also put down. The immediate juxtaposition of these two events serves to highlight the integral
nature of religion, morality, and politics in the ideology of the time: Ahura Mazda made Xerxes king;
therefore it is his responsibility to see that the god's will is done in his kingdom, that the
Zoroastrian ritual is carried out and the Zoroastrian teachings are obeyed. The moral component is also
reinforced in lines 41-46, where Xerxes declares his righting of other wrongs, again with Ahura Mazda's
aid. The king then declares what brings happiness to the living and the dead, namely reverence of and
obedience to Ahura Mazda. In closing, Xerxes again copies Darius exactly (cf. DNa 51-5, Lesson 9).

Translation

28 ... Xerxes the King
29 declares: Since [the time] that I
30 have become king, there is among those
31 lands inscribed above [one that]
32 was rising up. And thereupon, Ahura Mazda
33 bore me aid. By the will of Ahura Mazda I struck [that] country
34 down and I [now] put it down in [its] place.
35 And among these lands there was [also] one where
36 the daivas were once worshipped; [but] later, by the will
37 of Ahura Mazda, I uprooted that altar to the daivas,
38 and proclaimed: "The daivas
39 shall not be worshipped!" [Then,]
40 being reverent, I worshipped Ahura Mazda and Truth where the daivas were worshipped once before.
41 And there was yet another thing
42 that had been done for ill, [and] that I
43 made right, [too]. All this that I did,
44 I did by the will of Ahura Mazda.
45 Ahura Mazda bore me aid,
46 as long as I was doing the deed. [And] if you who [would come]
47 after [me] should think, "May I be happy
48 [as long as I am] living, may I be blessed [when I am] dead,"
49 [then] on account of that, honor the laws which Ahura Mazda has
50 set down. You, being reverent, should worship Ahura Mazda
51 and Truth. The man who, on account of that,
52 honors the laws which Ahura Mazda sets
53 down, and [who], being reverent, worships Ahura Mazda
54 and Truth, both becomes happy [as long as he is] living
55 and becomes blessed
56 [when he is] dead ...

Grammar

16. Noun Stems in Sibilants and Stops

16.1. s-stem Nouns

Old Persian nouns in as are few in form and number, though these few are fairly common.
The stem appears in both the masculine ās and the neuter as, but never in the feminine.

Singular:

Masculine auramazdāh- 'Wise Lord'

Neuter drayah- 'sea'

Nom.

auramazdā

*drahyah, *drahya

Acc.

auramazdām, *auramazdāham

*drahyah, *drahya

Instr.

unattested

*drahyahā

Gen.

auramazdāha

unattested

Loc.

unattested

drayahyā

Plural:

Instr.

unattested

drayabiš

Neuter nouns in is are seen in nominative and accusative singular hadiš. Masculine proper
names in is, e.g., haxāmaniš, are treated as masculine i-stems and decline accordingly.

16.2. Stems in Stops

There are Old Persian noun stems in t, d, p, and θ. The nominative form is found only in
napāt 'grandson', preceded by long a: napā. Feminine accusative, instrumental, genitive,
and locative forms of each decline similarly, as follows:

Singular:

θard- 'year'

Acc.

θardam, *auramazdāham

Instr.

*θardā

Gen.

θarda

Loc.

θardiy, *θardiyā

Plural:

Instr.

*θardbiš

17. Compounds

Two types of nominal compound occur in Old Persian. Determinative compounds are made
by joining two noun stems together such that the second determines the syntactic function of the
first, which therefore remains undeclined. This case relation may be any one of the oblique cases
(accusative through locative), e.g., hauma-varga- 'haoma-drinking' (accusative) or arda-stana-
'place of light' (genitive). The case ending on the second stem determines the relation of the
whole unit to the other words of the sentence in which it appears.

Exocentric, or possessive-adjectival compounds, are made like determinative compounds but
function as possessive adjectives modifying another noun which may or may not be explicity stated;
e.g., hama-pitar- 'having the same father', 'they who have the same father', or aspa-cana-
'having a love for horses', 'he who loves horses'.

18. The Perfect Tense and the Passive Verb

Old Persian includes only one perfect form, caxriyā, the third person singular optative active of
kar 'do, make'. The form shows reduplication as in the Avestan and Sanskrit, with the zero-grade root
preceded by ca. The translation is 'he would have done'.

Passive stems appear in both the present and aorist systems with the suffix ya added to the stem in
its normal grade. With two exceptions, an active ending is then added. E.g., abariya 'is born',
3rd person singular imperfect indicative.

19. The Passive and the Sequential Accusative

19.1. The Passive Construction

Sentences employing passive verbal forms, either finite or participial, require the logical subject
to be placed in the instrumental case while the direct object becomes the grammatical subject of the
verb, putting it in the nominative case, as in tya manā kartam 'what was done by me' beside
tya adam akunavam 'what I did'.

19.2. The Sequential Accusative

The final member of any list containing two or more accusative objects has
the instrumental case form; e.g., adam auramazdām ayadaiy / artācā...
'I worshipped Ahura Mazda and Truth...', where auramazdām is accusative and artā instrumental.
The pattern is standard, though it most likely originated by conflating the instrumental's expression
of accompaniment with the common sequence of accusatives: *auramazdām artā hadā 'Ahura Mazda
along with Truth' > auramazdām artā ca 'Ahura Mazda and Truth'.

20. Old Persian Texts, Grammars, and Dictionaries

Roland G. Kent's Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon (New Haven: American Oriental
Society, 1953, 2nd ed.) is the standard work; as the title indicates, it includes the
texts as well as the grammar and dictionary. Additional data are provided by
Supplement zur Sammlung der altpersischen Inschriften, by Manfred
Mayrhofer (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,
1978); the Academy has also published a large number of volumes on manifold topics. And
Rüdiger Schmitt has provided a new edition of the most extensive text in The Bisitun
Inscriptions of Darius the Great: Old Persian Text (London: School of Oriental and
African Studies, 1991).